Canola School: Cutworm Scouting and Identification

There are few things more frustrating than not being able to pin down what’s eating your canola. Knowing which pests feed when and their tell-tale damage cues is the first step in narrowing down the perpetrator list.

Cutworms, a general category that includes several pest species, feed in the early season (late May to June) and will leave bare patches in the canola stand, says Vincent Hervet, with University of Lethbridge. In this Canola School video filmed at CanoLAB ’13 in Edmonton, Hervet explains what to look for once you’ve dug up some pests and how to determine if the damage you’re seeing is from cutworms.

For more on cutworm damage, scouting and management, click here.

If you cannot see the embedded video, click here.